Nor Gloom Of Night
by cge0361
Summary: Ford is a dragonite who delivers the mail on time, every time, almost. But, can he deliver a new friend from danger before her zealous pack leader declares war on a man who isn't willing to suffer sneasels any longer?


-1- Bulk Rate.

* * *

"Isn't that a violation of regulations?" Sabrina asked with a scolding but playful tone as she spoke through a hole in a brass-tiled wall.

Ford fidgeted. "Technically yes, but I can't help it with postcards. Photographic memory; it helps me do my job, though."

Sabrina pressed. "And our magazines?"

The dragonite's orange face pulled away from Sabrina's mail office box's rear opening. "Are you going to file a report?"

"What? No, of course not. I was just teasing you. My last issue of Barmaiden Quarterly had a fat scaly thumbprint on one of the pages, so I guessed you must have read it with something on your mitts."

Ford appeared in the hole again. "Condensation. I was drinking a soda, but I was careless with my hand towel and didn't get all the moisture off."

"You're forgiven, but don't be careless again. Everyone along the Azom Heights counts on you and you've always delivered; which is why we don't mind you thumbing through our periodicals."

Her advice against carelessness served as a reminder on top of habit, and Ford asked Sabrina if she needed any stamps before she shut her mailbox door.

"Take care of yourself, Ford. The weather's going to be nasty tonight," she advised through the small wall of metal boxes as she departed.

Ford lumbered down a short corridor to his station's main room. It was both a sorting room and his living quarters. A small television with an improvised antenna rested atop a stack of dead letter boxes. That nomenclature was literal; letters within were addressed to men who were dead. Many were lost in a mine collapse years ago, and of them most were single and had no known kin to redirect their mail to. One addressee on a yellowing sheet of newsprint enumerating those casualties had particular significance: a Mr. C. H. Ponti. He died a hero, going in with a few Ground-types to try rescuing trapped men. He extracted five before further collapse ended his efforts. When Ford sorted out postcard after postcard from Mrs. Ponti asking if the report of his death was true and each time begging more emphatically that it not be, Ford could not help but send his condolences in reply. In a way they became pen-pals for a time; with Ford—who at first Mrs. Ponti seemed to believe was actually her husband's ghost—relying on her to keep him company in a small way, and Mrs. Ponti relying on him to help lessen her grief. After a number of months she came to terms with her loss, and thanked the mysterious man who she was mailing for his comforts. Actual correspondence between them ended, but a number of magazines on topics that Ford previously admitted interested him and a monthly delivery of a small edible gift bundle, all addressed to Mr. C. H. Ponti, continued to arrive continuously afterward.

His television took a moment to warm up, and presented a channel dedicated to old comedy programs. Ford slipped on large fuzzy boots and a pair of thick mittens; custom wear he knitted himself. He rolled into his one-dragon waterbed, cozied up against a beanbag chair that he used as both a comfortable rest for his head and for his folded wings, and let the waves rock him gently until they settled. Lame jokes and canned laughter helped pass his downtime, but it did little to ease a nagging loneliness that haunted him between duties. The video stream broke up spontaneously as Sabrina's weather prophecy became fulfilled. Unwilling to rise and insert hard media, Ford drew up his blanket and waited patiently for sleep to pay a call.

Ford awoke at midnight, set out a few bins, and separated his delivery. Between mountain terrain and an uneven spread of settlements and residences, each of his twice-weekly routes were custom tailored into three-day patterns. His first day involved flying down to Yureido Cove to pick up a bundle going up the mountains and to drop off a bundle going down the mountains. Yureido had a tiny mail office, even smaller than Ford's cabin, where he would quickly sort through the mail headed up to filter out anything that was destined for Yureido and place it appropriately amongst a wall of pockets with names on them. Security there was as relaxed as the town itself. Local children liked to watch and gamble candy on who could guess nearest to how long it would take Ford to work through his bag. Once he returned to his own office, he would split the mountain mail into smaller bags and figure out the best routes to ensure everything would be delivered in shortest time. Often he would work late on the second day to give himself the third day off. That was when mail office box customers' magazines would be test-driven unless local weather was nice enough to allow exploration of the range without a heavy sack's burden. Sometimes three days were hardly enough; especially in wintertime, when icy winds assaulted the membranes of his wings as he traveled between hermit cabins that dotted Azom Heights' many forested facings.

* * *

Day three, however, was most often ruined by Claude. The worst place for someone to live, from Ford's perspective, was in the low valleys between peaks. Home to the densest forest canopies, flying in or out from above was asking for disaster. He tried it once when he was new enough to the job to apologize for his error and for a number of late and somewhat damaged deliveries that immediately followed. It was the best place for someone to live, from Claude's perspective, as he was quite content with a life that revolved around hunting in very deep forests, fishing in a clean and abundant river, and creating artwork, often in large or monolithic format. Ford would cringe whenever his citizen band radio would crackle at about one-fifty-two and Claude's voice would demand that Ford respond immediately. That was part of their arrangement to save Ford from making trips that Claude would have found distracting.

"Ya-loh! Ford! This is urgent!"

He always said that. It never was. Ford picked up his radio's handset. "Ten-four, Claude."

"Ah, good. I've got a small bundle for you."

He always said that. It never was.

"Does it call for the truck?"

"Of course! What do you think, I have been meddling with trifles?"

Ford sighed. "In my dreams. I'll see you at daybreak. Ten-ten."

With that conversation, his plans to relax were dashed. Ford turned his television up, put something bland and flavorless in a microwave, and wheeled out the Claude bin. Beginning soon after he got published, art fanatics were sending Claude their copies of his book to be signed, and Claude would send them back. Eventually. Sometimes they chewed up Ford's first couple trips through the woods on a Claude day, due to their bulk.

The one bright point of a Claude day was lunch. Another small violation of regulation, but who needed to know? Ford was not sure where he got a degree in art critique, but whatever Claude was painting, sculpting, or lashing together with harvested vines at the time would be making a presence as though it were a third guest to the table. Reviews ended one of two ways: either Ford's opinion was negative, which meant he was a blind idiot who could not appreciate true art, or it was positive, and he was just kissing-up and hoping for a second serving. Either way, most of the pieces featured in Claude's book were also ones Ford liked.

Occasionally something else was on Claude's mind, however. "What can you tell me to do about pokemon cats?" he asked while pouring lemonade.

"Cats?" Ford asked before pouring half as much into his mouth.

"Yes, ample cats! They terrorize my muse without relent day after day. My garden, they ruin. My hart, they startle. Soon, I should find means to eat them or be starved. You are pokemon, you guide me."

Ford asked about their appearance, and it was as he feared.

"Smaller than a mountain cat, bigger than a house-cat, dark coat of a faded cool hue, accented with feathers of a pale magenta. I could cast one's visage to paper, but to create such a horror from within, my muse might be vanquished!"

Ford finished his drink. "Sneasels. You could befriend a pokemon to help guard your place. Any Fighting-type would chase a sneasel off, no contest, but one that will accept a reclusive artist's lifestyle would be hard to find. I think a mawile would be a good choice. Steel-types resist anything powerful a sneasel could throw at one, plus they're small and keep to themselves most of the time. Also, your artwork could get two opinions for the price of one."

Claude refilled Ford's mug. "Non, I have no time to be taming beasts. A Steel-type, do they not hunger for metals? My garden and harts are safe, I come home and my little figures are in its belly. Why not you do this for me? Big scary dragon, chase them off. If they don't scatter away, eat one and two and three until they go or you gobble them all up."

Ford admitted to himself, once you bit off and spat away their claws, sneasels were good eating. "I am a letter carrier, not an exterminator. And also, they're Ice-types, and I'm Dragon- and Flying-type. A whole pack of them summoning icy-winds could do me in, and even against one, if it knew ice-shard and ambushed me, I could be half-frozen before I could retaliate." He refused to let himself imagine combat against a wildcat feral that knew ice-punch.

Claude cleared their plates. "You just don't want to do it. Fine, fine, I'll hit them with my hoe and cook them up au gratin."

After lunch, Ford began moving artwork. Watercolor pages rolled into tubes nicely, as could canvas if taken off of the bars, but sculpture and metalwork was a struggle. Very big pieces Ford would carry singly by foot along, and often through, a nearby river until reaching the nearest mountain road, where it would be taken by a waiting private courier, which also often brought more supplies to be turned into more things to carry.

"And this," Claude added as Ford finished stuffing his mailbag with Claude's final lot, composed of actual outgoing mail and some small pieces that could be made to fit, "is a troublesome one. It's for a gentleman who might think it's a bribe, so be sure he understands that it's a gift of respect, okay?"

Ford took the box and saw his name standing alone where a destination address belonged. "I'm sure he won't suspect a thing."

Smiling while Ford tucked his package into the last open gap in his sack, Claude reminded, "but if he should change his mind before the aroma of cat barbecue pervades our forest airs," trailing off as he returned to his workshop.

Ford waved behind himself and started down a path, narrow and trod only rarely by any but his own feet. He felt exhausted. The valley was now in a western mountain's shadow, reducing further already low visibility in the dense forest that he trudged through. He could recognize a gnarled old tree ahead, a landmark guiding him to the river, where open sky would let him fly. He could not see, however, a number of caltrops scattered before him.

Piercing his foot, Ford howled and hopped back, grasping for the splinters of bone that cut into him. A rough and localized dialect commanded from above: "use ice!" Precariously imbalanced on one foot, Ford flapped his wings to get a little altitude beneath the canopy ceiling, but it was not enough to evade two weak ice-shards that brought him down to earth. Hearing rustling in nearby bushes, Ford spun about, the arc of his tail forcing a few advancing cats to leap clear and putting him in a position to kick another in its face with his caltropped foot. The pain for Ford was great, but as that weapon transferred to the sneasel he kicked, its pain would be forever greater.

Three pounced on Ford as he stood up. He swung around again to keep them from getting a fast grip and to sling his mailbag along the length of his arm. With an unspoken apology to the recipients of Claude's letters and small craft works, Ford used it like a flail to beat off the sneasels that assailed him. The horde fell back into defensive stances. He counted at least a dozen before he went blind. The weight that landed on his head was too great to be a sneasel. A strong tug pulled at Ford's right arm. He seized the weavile upon him with his left claw, by the neck per chance, and tore him away long enough to see two sneasels dragging him forward by his mailbag, a third slicing its strap away, and then a tree he was about to plough into. Ford crouched slightly and lunged at it, ensuring he would headbutt it directly with his cranial horn. Something fell from the tree and bounced off of his back. Using his good foot for leverage, Ford un-stuck himself and turned about. Most of the sneasels scattered. A few that remained were a few paces away, behind their weavile leader, carelessly tossing around the contents of Ford's mailbag. Beside him, a heracross that had fallen on its head was starting to regain its senses. The weavile barked a command, and the sneasels that remained each grabbed whatever box was closest to themselves and fled.

* * *

Hemoglobin added a deep red contrast that crawled behind smears of powerful copper green and placid cobalt blue on the strips of a rag that became a bandage for Ford's foot.

Claude pulled tight, eliciting a grunt from Ford, and tied a strong knot. "Now that we share a sentiment for these cats, you are ready to help, non? I have two hoes if you want to do it the fun way."

Ford could hardly lift his head. "I lost mail today."

Claude poured some scotch. "You lost my mail. Half of it was to people I don't like, and most of the baubles are wasted on the tasteless fools who commission me. Here," he paused to hand Ford a glass, "I'll look through and see what our playful kittens seized away."

Ford elevated his bloody foot on a table while Claude checked the remaining boxes' labels.

"Mon Dieu, they carried off the most important one!"

Ford's shame caused him to shrink in a chair he was too large for, causing it to creak in protest of his mass.

"But, since that one was my gift to you, it will be your motivation to aid me against our nemesis; allez!"

A half-hour later, with a few new letters penned by Claude and a large, sturdy hardwood mahl stick to bear the brunt of his weight instead of his foot, Ford began trekking back along the path to the river. Visibility was almost gone. He snapped a low-hanging branch, laid it on the ground, and pounded it with a fire-punch, kindling it to light. For a moment, he wished it were a weavile suffering that impact, but Ford quickly put that thought out of his mind. He knew the consequences of harboring a vengeful spirit.

The sound of the river called to him. Truly he wished to swim along it as he once did years ago, but it seemed to have become smaller a couple times in the past. Instead he wished that he knew a place that would be just right for him. At least he knew a place that was close enough. Stepping upon a felled tree that became a bridge in death, Ford cast his torch into the water, wrapped his crudely-repaired mailbag strap around the mahl, stretched his aching wings, and took to the sky. Had he looked down and behind himself, he would've noticed a faint fleck of pale magenta above four sets of bright white claws trace his path to the log's center and look up behind him.

* * *

A wooden carving of a majestic ninetales whittled down to nothing one scrape at a time as a weavile amused himself beneath bright moonlight. He knew a human who owned a ninetales, and wished that cutting Fire-types into thin slices could be so easy. Another figure, carved from stone, was being used a few meters away beneath a rocky outcropping that was the leader's throne as a target for new ice-shard users to practice their aim upon. All but one of the other items stolen were well destroyed. The ninetales was little more than a twig with a head when the weavile decapitated it and flicked the remainder away. "No food," he complained and hopped down to walk amongst his riot. "Wanted food!" he shouted into the ears of his lieutenants. He grabbed one sneasel by its arm. "You said, has bag, bag means food." The sneasel tried to explain that he had seen trainers produce food from their bags, but the leader knew that well enough and was not interested in excuses from a juvenile who did not know how to discriminate between a backpack and a mailbag. The weavile shoved that sneasel over and used his foot to press its face into loamy soil. "Lie again, you die." He went to the other side of his rocks where an alcove held a few eggs and females. One of the girls held another box, and would have seen it torn from her claws, but ignorant of his approach, she lifted from it its contents, another worthless object. Disappointed and frustrated, the weavile moved along, selected his favorite female, and solicited her companionship for the night. She wondered what had kept him and almost feared she somehow lost her rank.

The sneasel with the box held a worthless object up to the moonlight. She did not recognize the symbolism of the pose or that the bulk of the object was a rendering of a globe, but a dragonite that carried it on his shoulders with a satchel to his side; that, she recognized.

* * *

-2- Postage Due.

* * *

Tomorrow came too soon for a weary dragonite, and quite atypically he was by seconds late, touching down in front of Yureido Cove's general store just as a delivery truck pulled up. Its driver hopped out of its cabin and chuckled deep.

"Showin' up to work in your bunny slippers? You must've had a wild night, big guy!"

Ford hobbled up, "Mister Chambers, you have no idea."

Mister Chambers opened the back of his truck. "Your goodies are behind the store's stuff, so you'll have to hang on a bit."

Ford tossed his mailbag inside near a crate of propane cans. His foot appreciated a lightened load.

"Now, don't be giving me a hand with any of this," Mr. Chambers sarcastically chided.

Ford stepped out of Chambers' way, but did not give a hand. He knew that remark was both a trick and a test.

"Actually, you could do a favor for me, Mr. Chambers. I need some things from the store, and—"

Mister Chambers interjected. "How many times I gotta tell you not to call me that. My friends call me—"

Ford interjected in turn. "That's too short. It sounds like a nickname."

"Well it is."

"A nickname for a pokemon. Something a little trainer would give."

Mister Chambers began walking to the store with his arms full of new stock. "I like my initials better than my names. Sue me."

"I would choose your middle name. I think it sounds like, maybe a powerful leader's name."

Mister Chambers entered, delivered the delivery's first part, and returned. "If you want Augustus, you can have it. As-is, no returns, all sales final."

Ford limped along behind him to continue their conversation, and hopefully return it to its original course. "I don't understand."

"Look, it would wind up getting cut down to Gus anyway, and then it would be too short, as you said. Besides, Gus sounds like a truck driver's name."

"And," Ford pointed to the name patch on his friend's shirt, "that doesn't?"

"It sounds like it could be the name of a truck. You wish you could go around with a truck's name, don't ya'?" Mister Chambers gathered up another load. "Now, you said you need me to do something for you?"

"Yes, I need some things from the store, and for obvious reasons," Ford spoke with emphasis toward a sign reading "no pokemon allowed inside the store" in block letters, "I can't get them myself without flying much farther."

"Yeah, yeah, give me some cash and I'll make something happen."

* * *

Yureido's school-children were unsettled. They came to watch a dragon sort mail with hands faster than the eye, and instead they got to see him change a gross bandage. Most of the gross was his own immune system's effort; although he lost the ability to shed his skin when he evolved, Ford's body was still adept at pushing toxins to the surface. It looked slimy and putrid but really his injury was healing quite nicely beneath a sticky ooze that carried out all the nastiness that a dirty bone caltrop stabbed into him. Re-dressed with a proper bandage, he slipped his knitted slipper on again and got to work. He smiled. One small parcel was addressed to Mr. C. H. Ponti, but its return address was slightly different than expected. It was sent by a Mrs. Del Anore.

* * *

Ford lumbered into his home at the end of his route. He still had duties to perform at his workplace which happened to overlap in a spatial sense, but even the simple pleasure of sifting through the local-delivery bin could not capture his attention. He performed a rolling crash into his waterbed, earning a 7.9 from an international panel of judges, and sighed with delight as he elevated his foot and felt all the blood rush away from its wound. He adjusted his alarm clock: a few hours nap, then duties, then a little T.V. and a lot of sleep. It would be perfect, as long as nobody came to the office needing a package weighed, and his radio didn't crackle.

Of course, that evening it did.

"Comrade, our nemesis returns, and it mocks us!"

Ford had dragon-rage written across his face as he stomped, foot be damned, to his radio. "Ten-seven; also, not my problem."

"They tear my garden and plant bits of my artwork, like they want I should grow more for them to smash! Don't you want your slice of revenge?"

After holding his breath for a moment, Ford replied, "no, Claude, I want to sleep, and work, and relax, and repeat. I'm sure whatever you made for me was something really nice, but I'm also sure if it's ever seen again, it will be one chunk at a time. Goodnight; ten-three."

Ford turned off his radio, cranking its knob across Claude's responsive plea for further attention. At the least, he could wait until next he needed postal services.

* * *

Three weeks later, Claude again called for help with a "small bundle." Small enough to require Chambers' truck. Fortunately it was merely one work, so it cost only a fraction of the day. Ford waved off his lunch offer, knowing that Claude was anxious to get him seated and with a mouth too full to vocally refuse hearing designs to battle a feline menace. Apparently they were now ruining his hunting as much for fun as for their own dietary needs. Ford enjoyed his walk along the river, in blissful silence, as he carried Claude's artwork. Occasionally he heard a funny sound along the western bushes, but thought little of it. There were plenty of living things in the forest, and at worst, one sneasel attacking alone in broad daylight did not make much sense and he could handle fighting one without much worry, anyhow. He reached the mountain road and waited a short time for Chambers to arrive. Working-in Claude's pickup turned his day from two quick stops to a trek that barely broke-even after considering fuel costs. For anyone but Ford, Chambers would have surely declined the job.

However, it was for Ford, so Chambers added an offer to the end of their usual small-talk conversation, "if all that's left to get is his regular mail and you can fly from here to his place and back right fast, I'll give you a ride home. I know you can glide over the trees faster than I can drive through 'em, but you look like you could use a comfortable sit-down."

Ford half-laughed. "You call that rust bucket comfortable? Also, I would barely fit inside it."

"Yes, Sir, I do. I'll have you know that seat has at least two springs that are still in position. Which two I ain't sure of, but I'll hit a few bumps and you can let me know."

The dragonite hopped and flapped himself aloft. "I'll ride with the load."

Mister Chambers hopped into his driver's seat, turned up his radio, and started a cigar.

In a bush near the western end of the mountain road bridge, a sneasel sat hidden and considered what his words, "ride home," meant.

* * *

It meant moving very quickly. She was aware that vehicles moved at dangerously fast speeds, and had seen a couple times what happened when they collided with slow moving pokemon, but she was unaware of what it was like to be moving at those speeds herself; especially when clutching a metal handle for dear life. Occasionally she hooked a toe claw into a gap in the truck's skin and stabilized herself, but any sharp turn swung her free again. All that mattered was that she held on, and that the small purse that she fished from her riot's human victims' garbage heap did not break free. When Chambers' truck finally stopped, she let go and dashed away into the nearest cover she could find.

Ford sniffed the air emphatically when Chambers let him out, bringing the driver to discreetly check his shirt when Ford hopped down and looked away.

"Did you hear that noise?" the dragonite asked.

Mister Chambers scoffed. "Of course not. That's why it's called an S.B.D."

"A what?" Ford asked while Chambers shut the cargo door.

"Silent but deadly. Don't play innocent, he who smelt it dealt it. Good thing I just locked it in there."

"No, no. There was a banging sound against the door most of the ride here. Is something damaged or hanging loose?"

Together they examined the rear of Chamber's vehicle. "Well, I don't remember these scratches, but that could've happened yesterday."

They said their goodbyes and parted ways. The sneasel observed as Ford entered an adjacent building. Nothing if not patient, she scouted around the premises, peered through its windows, and admired an array of solar panels held high to the sky. They were much larger than those at the crazy man's cabin. She located a few wild berries and studied the coming and going of a few postal patrons. They arrived with boxes and departed without, or vice versa. She had a box within her bag. She took it inside.

Ford's head flung up sharply when he heard a crashing noise. He emerged from his mail room to see a sneasel looking in awe at a matrix of brassy mail office boxes with a pool of shattered safety glass in her wake.

"Sneasel?" he asked with an authoritative tone.

She looked up at him fearlessly, and offered to him the box. He took it from her. It was somewhat damaged, but he could still find his name written on it. He looked ahead upon the sound of glass crunching beneath claws.

"Wait, why did you give this back?"

She seemed confused for a moment. He asked again in their common tongue, and she understood him more easily. "Leader wants food. That object is not food. Why keep? That, of you. Give." She exited through the hole in the glass door she opened.

Ford covered the gap with some packing tape and cling film, and called out to report the damage. His superior was not pleased, but proper phrasing made it sound like a spontaneous act of a wild animal.

* * *

When the sneasel arrived at her own home, despite taking a direct path through the woods, it was very late in the day. The pack's leader was waiting for her. That was not a good sign.

"Traitor!" he shouted as she came near the rocky throne. "You give our take."

The sneasel rebutted. "Not food, don't want. Objects; you break, give back in human garden. Object, don't want, give back to dragon, same thing."

The weavile's fur and feathers stood out straight. "Object is mine. I decide. Take object from dragon. Give to me, or die."

She turned to carry out her orders, but not quickly enough in the weavile's opinion, as he came up behind her and raked her back while repeating his command. Wind picked up and blew cold air over her wound. Then, cold water, as the skies above opened up. When she reached the mail office again, it was very late in the evening. She wondered if dragonite were nocturnal. She did not know enough to consider that pokemon who live by abnormal human ways may hold abnormal human schedules. With a single swipe she slashed away the broken door's patch and slipped inside. Although her night vision was still recovering from exposure to bright light near the entryway, she shook off much of the moisture clinging to her fur and then surveyed the building's interior. Familiar brass walls stood tall above her. Around a corner where the dragon stood before, she found a small room with little of interest within it. Its walls were strange however, different from the others. A small ledge had a vine of tiny beads dangling from it, with a stick at its end. She batted it away once, and again when it swung around and touched her. Further along she found some panels that reminded her of how she held onto the delivery truck. Another look around let her discover nothing more to investigate, so she leapt up and grabbed a form that was like the truck's handle from before. With a loud bang, the handle lowered and she dangled from it. At least this thing was not taking hairpin turns at inadvisable speeds. Pulling herself up, she crawled into the part of the wall that opened by her weight. Although she barely fit, warm light and warm air inside welcomed her. With another loud bang, the door once again operated, now by the absence of her weight, rotating back to its prior position and flinging the sneasel into a deep canvas sack. Although turned sideways, her landing was soft and somehow comfortable. Surely her tribal leader would not know to care if she rested a little after such a long journey; but she had a mission to complete, that he did care about as a means to threaten her. Struggling against the sack's confines, she barely managed to right herself and look up when a large form appeared to loom over her.

Busted.

* * *

-3-Second-day Delivery.

* * *

Enshrouded by a towel, the sneasel was confused and agitated by being dried, medicated, and bundled for the first time in her life. Ford asked her if Ice-types could catch colds. She ignored him and looked around until she saw his object. It was resting on top of a heap of things, the second-uppermost part glowing like a moon were inside it, and voicing human words. Knowing the location of her goal, what remained was an exit. She recognized a couple doors, but did not understand how humans and trained pokemon made them open. The one she could see through, she smashed through, but these were obviously solid. Only the way she came in seemed viable, and like a mouth, it seemed to be a one-way passage, mostly.

Ford's stomach growled. "I think it's time to eat."

The sneasel's bold red eyes widened. She saw no berries in the room, nor any captivated livestock. The only thing he had to eat would be her.

Like hell she would permit that.

Ford rooted in his refrigerator looking for something his guest might enjoy. "Which would you like? I've got—" he began as he turned from his fridge to face a shadowy cat flying through the air at him, a towel fluttering away along a similar arc. Frozen dinners became jetsam as Ford reacted to catch her mid flight. His reach far exceeded hers, protecting him from her bared claws, but between her momentum and the damage she could do given proximity, Ford threw her aside.

That was an immediately regretted choice, as she landed talons-first on his waterbed.

The dragonite cursed with words born of instinct as he rushed over. The sneasel floundered off of Ford's mattress while he witnessed the damage. She saw her opportunity, mantled the pile of dead letter boxes, grabbed Claude's artwork, and with a faithful leap, tried to carry it and herself through the large parcel hatch. As the door shifted from one side of the wall to the other, she cast the object ahead and tried to follow, but the motion that offered to free her stalled as the metal jaw closed. While most of her body passed beyond its lower lip, spring-loaded force caught her right ankle and bit down. She scratched futilely against the metal panel she dangled before, but could find no purchase to pull herself free.

The room became brightly lit and heavy footsteps soon approached. She twisted a little to watch Ford collect his statuette from the floor and kneel beside her. What she noticed first was his expression. He looked sad.

"Why did you attack me?"

"Go away!" she screeched in a voice that betrayed absolute desperation and hopelessness. "Try to eat me, I'll kill you!" Flailing claws lashed out at the airspace between them.

"I don't want to eat you. Um, do you have a name?"

She said nothing.

"You know, something you're called, maybe by the others in your pack?"

She spoke very low. "She-Falls-By-Breaking-Branches." She glanced away, not at all proud of how she was known.

Ford leaned back a little bit. "That's a little long. Would you mind if I gave you a shorter name?"

That he would bother to name her was a sign that he was honest about not intending to eat her, and whatever he chose, it had to be an improvement; Dangles-By-Her-Ankles, perhaps? "Don't mind," she consented.

* * *

A few minutes later, Ruth sat on a soggy bean bag chair, explaining her situation in rough detail through somewhat illiterate sentences, while Ford labored with a vinyl patch kit. It would be barely enough.

"He's really going to kill you if you don't bring back a statue he doesn't even want?" Ford asked, finding difficulty in believing her claim.

"If he does. Old leader did not kill us. Old leader was weak. New leader is strong; led by trainer before."

Ford left the patches' adhesive to set. "Very well then, if it will save your life, take it." He carried it over to her and placed it in her claws.

Ruth looked up to him, and wondered why he was doing this. He should keep the object, because it is his, and then he should eat her, because she is then doomed without it. He was throwing away a possession and protecting someone he bashed with a mailbag not long before. Ford walked across the room and opened a door for her. As she followed toward it, she glanced at Ford's property. He had his own pond, trapped within a skin. He had little people keeping him company and performing for his entertainment in a little box. He had metal boxes that fed him at will. This little figure truly did nothing for him, but still he was buying her life with it, and she did not know...

"Why, you help me?"

Ford thought about it for a moment. "For the same reason that you and your friends attacked me, and the same reason you gave it back in the first place. We do what's in our nature."

Her shadow cast before herself disappeared as the door behind her drew shut, blocking out the bright, warm, comfortable place it guarded. Advancing toward faint moonlight, cool and humid air filtered through the broken door's torn repair. She felt little motivation as she ascended the mountainside. After surrendering the object to her leader, she would have nothing. Nothing except for a stuffed belly, gorged on a meal that the dragonite treated her to while he sopped up sprayed bed water and dug around for his repair kit. Perhaps he was fattening her up for later, she considered since she was rather scrawny, but there was no way that she would taste better or be more nourishing than what food he already had.

Ruth presented her leader with the object as he awoke beneath a new sunrise. He picked it up, threw it against her forehead, and shouted, "you don't climb my rocks!"

When she regained her senses, she was not being slain, so she considered her mission to be a success and waited amongst the riot for orders.

* * *

"It was a very nice sculpture, though."

Claude agreed with a sardonic, "you're telling me." He refilled Ford's glass. "Why did you let it go? You betray me; you could have saved a swing of my hoe one day."

"I don't want to kill them. There must be a better way. Besides, from what she said, she—"

"Oh, hoh, hoh! Now I see clearly. The little minx turned your fancy and stole your reason, too."

Ford choked on his sandwich. "You're being ridiculous."

Claude smiled. "Then you will feel no sadness when I cleave her head with a swing of my scythe."

Ford choked on his sandwich again. He set it on his plate and walked away from Claude's table.

"You, there! I have more things for you to take today!"

Ford did not care; at least, not until he realized he was sitting on a log bridge and behaving in a manner derelict of his duty and disgracing his uniform vest. An impulse suggested he tear it from his body, cast his bag into the river, and walk, swim, or fly away, in any direction.

To be free, naked, and wild. It was one column of buttons away.

No. He ran away once before. It was no true freedom.

Ford cast a great splash as he hopped down from the log into the river. He felt a sensation of cold water flowing across his scales. Truly that was all he longed for, and he enjoyed it every time he hauled down one of Claude's pieces of junk. Three were waiting for him at the end of a path that led to the mad man's cottage. Ford stepped onto the riverbank and contemplated what he would say to excuse himself. He forgot about that thought when a canopy branch fell nearby. Turning about, a dark-furred creature landed in a bush two paces away. It had to be Ruth; her clan name betrayed her.

He threw a fire-punch across the bush's top, ashening most of the leaves that blocked his view of her within. He extracted her and set her on her feet. "Are you following me?"

"Leader knew I got food. Got from you, brought none to him. Called me traitor. Can't hunt with them now. Human gives you food. You give me food. I'm hungry again."

Ford looked back toward Claude's home, which was invisible for distance and density of forest. "He gives me food because I'm useful to him. He won't give you food. He says he wants to kill your whole pack." Ford omitted Claude's desire that the dragon be an instrument to that end.

"Why? We don't kill him."

"You stole everything in his garden, and mess up his hunting."

Ruth considered that dynamic. "He messes our hunting, takes our game. Leader made even, taking his plants."

"Claude doesn't think it's even."

"Leader doesn't, too. Wants more."

Ford knelt before her and placed his paws on her shoulders, practically engulfing her. "I think he's serious. If your pack attacks his home, I think he will try to kill you."

"All of us?"

"If he can, and he can. Have you seen him hunt with his shotgun?"

Ruth thought back to the few times she was trusted to join a big meat hunt. "Hunting tool, makes smoke and noise and stabs far away things?"

"Yes. Your pack is large, but he can kill eight of you, bang, bang, bang, like that."

She had only seen it fired once at a time; it being able to repeat, and pointed at sneasels she knew, or herself, was a scary thought. "Bang, bang, like that?"

"He didn't say he was going to use his shotgun when he told me he wanted to kill all of you, but one of his packages I delivered today was a case of ammunition. He's ready."

Images of things she remembered seeing the human shoot flashed in her mind. "I don't want to die."

"Will your leader leave Claude alone?"

"No."

"Ruth, I want you to leave them. Abandon his pack."

The sneasel jumped and squirmed like she had been electrocuted briefly. "No! I don't want to die!"

"Ruth, that's the point of leaving."

"Leaving pack is biggest treason. Hunt traitor, painful death." Tears welled in her eyes.

"What if I protected you?"

"Can't always. They wait. Someday, they'll kill me."

"Damn it, Ruth, there has to be some way. Has any sneasel ever gotten away?"

She barely whispered. "One did. She was weak, not worth feeding. New leader wanted her dead, wanted me to kill her. She ran fast. I almost got her, when hungry and slow. Trainer put her in monster ball first. Got away safely."

"Ruth, do you trust me?"

She nodded very slowly to an affirmative.

* * *

Claude heard footsteps and rustling bushes behind himself. He swung his axe into a large section of a felled tree. "You let me wait a longer time than I expected, Ford! A little more time, I would finish this for you to take." Another chop knocked a hunk of wood and bark from his developing masterpiece. The footsteps he heard were not quite right. Heavy and plodding was expected, light and rapid was not. He turned and almost dropped his axe.

One of those cats stood before him, held in position by Ford behind her. "Claude, this is a sneasel. One of your sworn enemy. Her name is She-Falls-By-Breaking-Branches, but I call her Ruth. Are you ready to murder her?"

Claude flexed his grip on his axe's handle. "You have this situation in hand, take care of it. Or, was I right about you and her?"

"I have not betrayed you. You wanted to kill the sneasels. Here's your chance to begin. I'm not going to stop you."

Claude motioned with his axe, and brought it against her neck, looking into her eyes, then Ford's. "Really?"

"I'm going to trust you to do the right thing."

The artisan buried his axe in his work. "This is no tool for this job," he griped as he went inside his home, returning with his shotgun.

"Not the garden hoe, Claude?"

"Funny, Ford. Stand aside." Claude raised his weapon.

"No."

"What? I do not want to use you as my—what is the word—back-stop."

"Then don't."

Claude stepped closer, again and again, until the barrel of his shotgun was inches from Ruth's face.

"It doesn't know what this is, does it? No clue of what it does when I pull the trigger?"

Ford flexed his grip on Ruth's shoulders. "She knows. She has been out there when her pack hunted your hunts."

Claude looked away from the sneasel, up to Ford. "It shows no fear."

"She has only one thing to lose, and she trusts me. What about you?"

A moment later, a loud crack echoed through the forest.

* * *

-4- Return Service Requested.

* * *

The hardwood stock of Claude's rifle was not hard enough to survive an impact against the side of Ford's skull intact.

"Here!" Claude stepped back and cast a pokeball from his pocket carelessly at the sneasel. "I hope she makes the tip of your dick smile. Get off of my land; never come back. I'll hire a private courier. Flygons are faster, anyway!"

Ford picked up Ruth's pokeball and put it inside his bag.

His mind pre-occupied, Ford almost forgot to give consideration to Mr. Chambers as he flew over the mountain road bridge. That the dragonite flew over at great speed was not as much a surprise to the truck driver as Ford's flying at all. Usually he looked like Atlas, carrying the world on his back.

Bushes rustled as Ford circled about and landed with a strong beat of his wings. "Claude is no longer interested in postal service."

Mister Chambers leaned against his truck's side panel. "You don't say? Sounds like a lovers' quarrel if you ask me."

"I didn't ask you."

"That you didn't. Want a ride back to base?"

Ford grumbled a response that Mr. Chambers could not possibly decipher, but moved toward the rear door, which communicated enough.

Mister Chambers opened the door for him. "Well, I guess we won't be meeting here much anymore, but we'll always have Yureido."

* * *

Sloshing back and forth slowly, Ford mused while Ruth enjoyed another meal-in-minutes. "I was hoping he just wouldn't have had the heart to kill you guys, but it seems the only reason he didn't fire was because of me. But, you do have a ball now, so I guess if I find you a trainer, you can be safe, like the sneasel you told me about."

Ruth licked some tasty fluid from her claws. "Don't want human. Go back to pack."

"But what you told me; your leader is horrible to all of you. And, if he takes you on a raid of Claude's place again—."

"I won't go there. I'll go here. Leader won't chase me if busy. After, he will, but here is safe, right?"

Ford hoped so. "Not as safe as if you were with a trainer, especially one who has good trained pokemon."

Ruth finished her meal, approached Ford's waterbed, and climbed upon his bulk, letting his tough scales protect the vinyl from her claws. "I want my pack. That's my nature."

Ford gripped her in a hug. She moaned gently. "Will I see you again?"

"When leader doesn't care, and I'm hungry."

The dragonite scoffed. "I was hoping you would want to see me, not my food."

"NEED food. Starve, die, can't see you again."

"If you had a trainer, you wouldn't be hungry again. Promise me, if I find a good one, you'll at least consider joining a trainer?"

"Never hungry?" A dream that seemed too good to be true. "I'll consider. But if I go away with trainer, I can't see you again. Then, why eat?"

* * *

Sabrina leaned against her fist, elbow against the brassy boxes. "The part about her getting away by being caught by a trainer is romantic enough, but until that your story was about them chasing her, thirsty for blood. The trainer probably had a team that could've fought them off, and journeyed to God-knows-where, so of course they quit chasing her. I live on the same mountain range, I have only one pokemon, and while he is more than a match for sneasels, there's no way I could ask him to act like some guard dog, waiting forever for some wildcat ambush. Also, do you think I want to have my bar torn apart by those nasty little monsters sometime when I'm not looking? No thank you, Ford."

"Alright," the dragonite said as he walked away from the one slot whose door was open. "thanks for listening."

Sabrina shut her mail box door and paused. He forgot. He never forgets. She realized then how important it was to him to find a home for a sneasel.

"Nasty little monsters," he muttered as he slung a heavy mailbag across his back and secured its straps. He left his home office through its back door, spread his wings, and took flight. The way down south was an easy, smooth glide.

Residents of Yureido Cove greeted Ford warmly as they passed in and out of their general goods store while he stood on its porch and waited for the truck. Not long, for it was almost always on-time. "Good afternoon, Mr. Chambers," he called out while approaching.

The driver hopped out and put his hat on as though he felt naked without it. "Good morning, Ford. Just because you get up too damned early doesn't mean you need to rub it in around us lazy bones." Mister Chambers opened the back and crawled inside, around a piece of exercise equipment whose design shouted late-night infomercial impulse buy and a small pallet of bricks and mortar mix. "Here's this half-week's toil for you."

They exchanged Ford's bag for one that looked much the same.

"Toil? Call it a stereotype, but postal work is a dream job for a dragonite. That's why we're the mascot on the emblem."

Chambers secured Ford's bag and hopped out of the truck. "Whatever you say, but don't you get tired of asking people if they need stamps all the time?"

Ford looked around to be sure no one was within earshot and leaned close. "Are you kidding? Once in a while one of the mine widows is looking for a little help getting her stamps licked."

Chambers elbowed Ford. "Get out of here."

"Hey, they know that the postdragon always rings their bell twice."

"Recently?" Chambers asked.

Ford shrugged a little. "Not recently, actually."

"You know, I've got a girl about your size you might like to meet. She used to have a thing for one of my guys but they had a fight over something and now they won't look at each other. He's my only one that can talk and he won't talk about it, so I'm thinkin' whatever it is, they're probably splits for good. Anyway, I like lettin' them horse around in the evenings, but she keeps sneaking off to have a little fun by herself, 'bout as often as she and he were sneaking off to have fun together. Whenever she's not, she's looking pretty damn depressed when she's not putting on a show for the other one. I think it'd do her good to meet a different male in her weight class. Of course everyone living up here like their privacy and peace and quiet, and I'm no exception, but I wouldn't mind you coming around one day a week for a call more social than to drop off junk labeled 'Resident' for me to pitch into my fireplace. If you two were to hit it off, I'm sure we could work something out. She's not in your group, and I got her on the prophy shot anyway, so there's no risk of consequence. Course, if you are lookin' to make some eggs someday, I guess that might be a deal breaker."

Ford was visibly embarrassed. "I appreciate your concern for both her and my, ahem, well-being, but right now I've kinda got a crush on someone. I don't know how she feels about me; I'm getting mixed signals. But, I think I want to see where that's going to go. I guess if it goes nowhere I'll ask if your two got together again."

The driver shut and locked his truck's rear door. "Okay, but I hope you're not missing a big opportunity here. She's a favorite of mine: strong, dependable, got a big heart. If she were a human," Chambers held an innuendo-laden grin until Ford fidgeted, "hell, at least tell me what species you're passing her up for."

Ford looked around to be sure no one was within earshot and leaned close enough to whisper, covering the side of his mouth with a paw.

Mister Chambers' jaw fell slack. "What the fuck are you doing associating with trash like one of those?"

The dragonite was visibly shamed and insulted as he looked at Mr. Chambers with eyes that burned with rage but begged for forgiveness.

"Ah, shit!" He removed his hat and kicked his truck's tire, staring away for a couple seconds while regaining his composure. "Ford, I didn't mean that like that. But every dealing I've ever had with one of those little gremlins has been god-awful, and the few that get bigger cause even more trouble. I damn sure hope if you're getting involved with one it's a rare good one and that she don't have any family that's going to come hanging around. I don't want to see you hurting 'cause of a bad decision. We go back too far for that."

Ford hefted his sack. "I have to get this sorted and make my village rounds."

"Dammit," Chambers shouted, "I said I was sorry."

Ford knew that he was, but his mind was hearing little more than a fusion, "nasty little gremlin monsters." Perhaps the signal was not so mixed. Perhaps it was half true, that Ruth was nothing more than a parasite that sought to eat his food whenever it missed a few meals in the wild, and used his compassion against him. Could it really be so simple that she brought the statue back to him because, it having been crafted into a representation of his form, that she felt returning it to him was her role in bringing the universe into proper order?

Did parasites care about karmic balance?

* * *

A weavile splayed upon a rock yawned and stretched as he awoke from a mid-day nap. He groped and nuzzled his favorite female beside him, who also awoke and returned a similar gesture. He leapt down and sniffed around. Their berry cache was almost empty; foraging weight was not being pulled. He harassed a few rioters, and quickly grew tired of hearing the same excuse—that all the local berry patches were picked clean—again and again. He did not want to migrate, for his rock was a wonderful symbol of his power. However, if he grew hungry and weak, that symbol would not protect his station. "Assemble!" he commanded. His address was as simple as it was short. "The human has food. Only food near here. Tonight, we take it all; tomorrow, we move."

She-Falls-By-Breaking-Branches was given the floor when she stepped forward solely because she was one not brave enough to demand it, normally. She relayed the warning Ford gave her, and claimed that, while scouting the human's territory, she was targeted with his weapon, and survived only because the dragonite was there, and the human feared his wrath. Mentioning Ford's influence was regrettable, as it altered the topic of discussion.

"Dragon, your protector? Are you of us, or are you of his?"

There was only one way to answer. "Us."

The weavile pressed his bindi against hers. "You will prove yourself."

Claude's cabin was approached by the riot well after sundown. Their plan was simple and blunt, as was their leader's wont. Break in silently, find his food, take it all. If he awakens, flood in and eviscerate him before he can retaliate. The shotgun was marginalized; when its influence in combat was questioned, the leader merely scoffed, "kill him before he can use it, or let him kill you."

The leader sent in his most reliable operative first. She was very agile and light-footed, having come to be known as Footprints-Of-Tail-feathers for how little evidence she left behind, even in sticky mud. Her record for stealing from humans was flawless, however all of her experience was in robbing encamped or distracted trainers without getting caught. Inside a human's domicile, her experience was of little value. She knew this going in, and appealed to her lover to reconsider, but he trusted her above all others and admitted that she would always be his number-one, even if she failed to discover his larder. Without making a sound more loud than a branch swaying in breeze, Footprints-Of-Tail-feathers tested the cabin's weaknesses and chose a window on the western face whose shutters opened easily. Inside, with careful and silk-smooth motions she stalked each piece of furniture, walking about on the tips of her claws, letting them dig into the rough wood flooring for grip. She found many things, but nothing that seemed to be food; lots of metal tools and jars of goo that released terrible smells when she opened them.

Finally she gave up on the main chamber and moved to a narrow doorway alongside the north wall. Her eyes, adapted to the darkness and moonlight, easily detected a tiny amount of light around the next corner. Unsure of its source, she ventured to peek. Doing so meant leaning to her left. Doing so meant even in the inky darkness, a small magenta flag above her ear would be the first thing to come into view.

Outside, the entire riot's attention focused on the lower eastern half of the cabin's northern face. With a report of a hunter's magic wand heard within, a small burst of splinters flew out of the side of the cabin, and a cloud of dust and shattered rock glistened in the faint moonlight near a stony incline nearby.

"Branches," the leader spat, "bring me his hunting tool, or die trying."

Stealth was not her forte, but she did not think it would matter for long. She considered beating off down the slightly worn path and not stopping until she burst through a mail office door, but she could see motion parallel to her own as she descended toward the cabin; at least, inside, it would be quick. She clambered into the pried-open shutters as her predecessor had, and found her way around to the hallway. She stopped and examined the horror of a headless ruin of a sneasel lying against the north wall, fresh blood reflecting light from a candle but four meters away. A slight motion nearby cast a shadow that moved across the form.

She stepped around the wall, saw Claude sitting on a stool, his half-stocked shotgun in hand and aimed directly at her as it had been once before. She shuddered, cringed, and whimpered softly.

* * *

Laughter filled the room, canned and live, as Ford appreciated the program projected on his television screen and sorted his half-week's toil. It was only because of the break between episodes that Ford noticed faint line-noise coming through his citizen-band radio; a particular, unique flavor that was one-hundred percent Claude's. It would not be the first time that he carelessly leaned something against the transmission key. Once, in fact, he unwittingly gave anyone on Channel 6 a free sample of what would otherwise cost a crown a minute. Feeling up for taking a break, Ford abandoned his re-sorting and sat beside his radio, opening a package from Mrs. Ruth Del Anore. The contents included a selection of berries, and a note of admission that never once suspected that she had been pen pals with a pokemon, and that she felt foolish in retrospect, not that she was embarrassed by their exchange, but by her previous letter, obsequiously apologizing for secretly bringing another man into her life while selfishly treating Ford like a long-distance relationship that she could dispose of once inconvenient. Especially since she was unable to immediately dispose of it at all. However, both agreed that the time had come. Ford felt her berries made for an appropriate final gesture, and as he admired the selection, he—

Bang!

—flew out of his chair, bashing his head against and breaking out a ceiling tile and letting scatter his gift of berries all about the mail room.

Two clicks, and a faint hollow plastic sound as another cartridge chambered and a spent shell casing fell to the floor near the radio's conversation partner.

"They come for me," whispered a faint and somewhat accented voice.

* * *

The only thing that had stayed Claude's finger was a nagging suspicion. This one cowered in fear. This one had something to lose.

"You're his, non?"

Ruth opened one eye and nodded slightly more strongly than she trembled.

"How many?"

Timidly she reached toward the wooden wall and scratched marks into its surface to count off the riot's members.

"What do they want?"

She struggled to gesture in ways he would understand, and in ways that he would not interpret as a sudden attack.

* * *

The leader waited patiently. Soon enough, another blast, near the first, punched a second hole in the cabin's northern wall. "It can work more than once," he now believed. "Assemble! We all enter together." Sneasels surrounding the cabin came around into a cluster near their leader. As he prepared to signal their advance, a loose shutter near the cabin's front door swung open. She-Falls-By-Breaking-Branches fell out with a shotgun accompanying her.

She approached her leader and called out, "Tail-feathers, dead. Got hunting tool."

The leader stood tall, and apparently a little proud. "Give to me, be forgiven, maybe my new number one." He could not let show a sign of weakness, but the end of his sentence almost stuck in his throat.

Claude told her while he removed the slug shells and chambered one cartridge of buck shot, all she had to do was "point it straight and pull the trigger." Her claws were poorly suited for the task, but she tried her best.

Eighteen pellets peppered the riot. Three sneasels fell, but their leader only recoiled in pain as he caught two beads in his right arm, and one beneath his rib-cage. Ruth recovered her senses after being deafened and knocked windless by the blast and recoil of Claude's shotgun, scrambled to her feet, and fled down the mountainside. The leader examined his wounds, and his fallen soldiers. One had a hole in his head and twitched as his soul struggled to escape thereby. Another had a hole in her chest that bubbled blood with every gasp she squeezed through. The third merely licked at a tiny patch where some flesh once was. "We kill the human, eat his food, kill the traitor, kill the dragon."

As they advanced, the weavile checked the shotgun, pointing it at a half-moon above. Thrice, perhaps, but its magic was now spent.

Hidden beneath a drop-cloth, peering though a small slit, Claude sat perfectly still in the south-east corner of his studio room as nearly a dozen sneasels poured in through an opened window. All through, they rushed through the hallway and into his living space, shrieking and attacking blindly at whatever might be within. There was nothing but a candle, a half-finished sculpture, a radio, a disheveled bed, and a refrigerator containing all the food they could have ever dreamed about. Thoroughly distracted, the riot went straight for the food. Their suspicious leader, however, stood in silent thought: if the shotgun went off twice inside, but only the body of the one sneasel he loved could be seen and She-Falls-By-Breaking-Branches emerged unharmed, then—

"Bad kitties!"

From a pair of tins with can-opened tops, Claude splashed eight liters of camp fuel across the whole of his den and many of the monsters within it, and pitched a match inside as he withdrew. He abandoned his home and the screaming within, looking back briefly to see a few immolated sneasels thrashing about wildly in a macabre fire dance behind an open-shutter window. He found his shotgun on the ground, and loaded it with a few slugs from his pocket, just in case. Although none emerged as half of his cabin burned itself out, it would be a long walk to civilization.

* * *

-5-Return to Sender.

* * *

Ford listened intently to his radio. High pitched, cat-like voices called out chaotically. A messy clamor of falling objects joined the gruesome orchestra for a moment. "In the metal box!" one voice shouted, shortly before radio transmission ceased. The dragonite felt a great weight in his stomach and returned to his bed, seriously considering calling in sick. Not that there was anyone to spell him, or even to call-in to. The whole point of his presence was that there was nobody else who could and was willing to do his job.

Nonetheless, an hour passed in complete silence, the video he left running having returned to its menu where it idled patiently, with Ford trying to figure out what he heard happen. Three shotgun blasts, two near, one distant. Then, only after some time, he heard the sneasels screaming. That was not the work of Claude's shotgun or his garden hoe for that matter. It befuddled Ford to the point that it took some time for him to respond to a faint tapping at his office door.

Ruth leapt into Ford's arms when he opened the door. She was out of breath from an exhausting run and could not speak until she calmed down. He was relieved to hear of Claude's change of heart, but none of the events following the third shotgun blast could she help to explain. Whatever happened, Claude must have won.

Soon, without realizing it, Ford was sorting through his bins again, leaned forward slightly as a sneasel rested upon his neck, seated on the roots of his wings. He enjoyed the gentle purring sound coming from her as she relaxed.

* * *

When he was trained and kept, flinging iron balls was a strange but effective surprise tactic in matches. The statue was nothing more than an iron ball with a figure of a dragon attached, so the principle was the same. Plate glass fell as a heap of shards, its sound heralding a weavile and three sneasels of singed and burned fur and feathers.

Ford listened intently as they investigated his mail office. They beat on brassy boxes, topped garbage bins, and rattled locked doors.

"Do you trust me?" Ford asked Ruth as she slid down along his spine.

"I trust your nature," she whispered.

First, he opened her ball and twisted its halves apart, so that it could not be used against her. Then, with a feat of strength, Ford lifted a column of three large boxes with a television atop and set it aside, leaving behind a metal-framed fabric bin with the words "property of postmaster, Azom Heights" printed on its walls in ghostly-faded ink. Scooping up ancient mail and dumping it into a heap, mixing with today's half-sorted delivery, he made enough room inside to contort Ruth's body such that it would fit within. Steel shearing away as the leader metal-clawed through a pull-down service window shutter covered the noise of Ford replacing the stack of boxes on top of the fabric bin. He grabbed a large, ice-blue berry from the floor as he made his escape through the rear exit and locked it behind himself.

Widening the hole enough for his own passage, the leader squeezed through and his remaining followers followed. They burst into Ford's mail room and once again found nobody inside. The leader quickly turned about and checked their six; no inflammable ambush approached. His sneasels kicked over collection bins and tossed up Ford's piles. Tiny beads scattered as one shredded the beanbag and floated away when the waterbed mattress was tested next. Falls-By-Breaking-Branches breathed as shallowly as she could manage, although thick fabric walls did not permit much air anyway.

A faint voice shouted against the facility in a common tongue. "If you want to fight, come! Prove yourself against me!"

The leader sneered. "A lure. She is here. Keep looking; I will kill him alone. If you find her, kill her immediately."

Beneath a lone spotlight illuminating the office's three parking spots, Ford waited desperately for a response.

The weavile walked safely over broken glass on the tips of his thick-clawed toes, baring his talons fully as he approached. "Tell me where she is, I will kill you fast. If you don't: ice and bleeding."

Ford popped his berry into his mouth and swallowed it after one bite. "I fought League against your kind. Let's do this, just like old times."

"I've fought League, too. Not like old times; now we play for keeps." The weavile charged forward, summoning an ice shard and throwing it like a javelin. With a quick twist, Ford blocked it with his mailbag, and twisted back around, rightly expecting the weavile would pounce behind it, and clobbered the weavile with a fire-punch. Undaunted, the weavile got up again and cast metal-claw upon himself. With a wise fake, he put Ford into another attempt to block and attacked in earnest, re-severing the mailbag's strap, raking Ford's vest into ribbons on one side, and drawing blood from beneath his scales.

Deftly swinging his other set of talons, the weavile put a couple slits in Ford's right thigh, just above his knee. Focused on assaulting the dragon's foundation, he was blind to a brick-breaking karate chop coming down against the back of his head. Ford left the incapacitated weavile lying in the dirt. The other sneasels never joined their fray; Ford feared it could be too late.

Inside, his mail room looked like a tornado had touched down. Indeed, three little twisters were still inside: one eating his food while scattering his supplies; a second throwing things around playfully, calling out to She-Falls-By-Breaking-Branches in a mocking tone; and a third had climbed up into the drop ceiling, watching the other two devastate.

The one still searching knocked over a stack of old dead-letter boxes, the column beside Ruth's hide. Ceiling Sneasel yelped when she noticed Ford emerge from the doorway. The two sneasels below panicked and summoned icy-winds, but to little effect between their low level of ability and the yache berry Ford consumed. The sneasel in the rear hopped onto Ruth's column of boxes and threw Ford's television at him. Forced to defend himself by catching it against his mighty horn, Ford had finally had enough. His bed was ruined, his was television destroyed, his food was wasted, and his mail had become a carpet of disarray. All that was left was Ruth.

Desperate for air, Ruth forced a claw through the bin's fabric. All four others looked her way. One of the sneasels brandished his extended claws.

Ford became outraged.

* * *

Sore and frustrated, the weavile found his way to the mail room. Ford knelt near the center; three dead sneasels lied like twisted dolls around him. A faint voice from the south-west corner cried out. "Dragon, are you hurt? Are we safe now?"

The weavile smiled, and silently let his clenched fist become coated with ice. He tip-toed to the bin and called out loud, "there you are!"

Still dazed after coming down, but with resolve unfaltering, Ford threw himself in the weavile's direction with an ignited fist, exactly as the weavile expected. He threw his readied ice-punch into Ford's chest, freezing him to his core. Deftly slinking to one side, the weavile evaded Ford's falling bulk and watched it skate along a carpet of letters. With a sharp low-kick, he rolled the dragon onto his back. Ford grunted with pain as his weight pinched his wings awkwardly. The weavile looked at the ventilated mail bin. She-Falls-By-Breaking-Branches peered through the slit she tore in it. Good, he wanted her to see what her treachery wrought. The weavile climbed upon Ford's chest, and dug his right foot's claws in for good measure. They did not sink far enough to damage any organs, but no matter in a few moments more; and after all, what was this part about? That's right.

"Ice and bleeding," the weavile spat as he formed a fresh ice-shard and held it like a dagger.

Ford opened his left eye as the weavile raised his crystal spear to plunge it into the dragon's neck, a wide grin crawling across his face.

"Ice and bleeding."

The ice-shard shattered away, its fragments chased by a spray of red warmth, splattering against a heap of art books and making them somewhat modern. Disemboweled by a rifled slug, the body of the weavile twisted and collapsed, rolling off of Ford's chest and pouring its fluids into a carpet of postmarked envelopes.

Two clicks, and a faint hollow plastic sound as another cartridge chambered and a spent shell casing fell to the floor near the radio that lost its conversation partner.

"Does that make the total of them?" Claude asked.

Ford struggled to stand, his feet sliding around over the loose and coarse mess. "There's one left." He ripped open the fabric panel of Ruth's cage and pulled her through. "And this one is all mine."

* * *

Seeing no sense in letting good meat go bad, Claude built a pit from stones and fried up the useful remains of the sneasels and weavile. Although cannibalism was no stranger to sneasels in the lean times, Ford felt uncomfortable with re-acquainting himself with their flavor, and focused on his task throughout the morning. Smashed but surviving bread from Ford's cabinet made for misshapen buns, and then, sneasel burgers at sunrise. Ford's curiosity got the better of him and he asked Claude what happened to the rest of Ruth's band. Claude claimed that it was just a little scuffle—he always said that; it never was—but that he would need to replace a few things, beginning with his radio. He set off down the mountain alone.

* * *

Ford felt shamed that he was failing his rounds that day, but come afternoon, even the mail that was not soaked with water, blood, or worse was merely collected into a heap ready for sorting. They would get where they needed to go soon, though. Ford always delivered.

He pulled up a stool that once stood before his radio. It was missing one leg too many to be serviceable, and since it was rated to support two-hundred fifty kilograms, that made him wonder what he had done with it. After a minute, he remembered: the one that had been eating. For a moment he considered a shoddy repair using half of Claude's mahl stick. No; it was as shattered as the pinata it had been used upon.

A gruff voice sounded from the entryway. "What in the blue blazes happened here? Ford, if you threw a party pouring that lizard piss moonshine you make, you'd better lie and say my invite got lost in the mail!"

Ford lumbered out of his sorting room, and Ruth ran up behind him, leaping through the doorway as he exited. Out front, Ford met Mr. Chambers.

"This ain't a snafu, is it? I pulled some strings to get the door job, make sure it gets put in right, but they didn't say anything about the front glass." Chambers stepped through the hole and looked around at the mess. A wet-floor sign placed nearby did what it could to caution anyone passing by of a swept-into-a-pile pile of debris.

"It was only the door when I called for repairs. The window happened early this morning."

Mister Chambers collected a statuette from the heap of swept-aside glass. "Really now, Ford, workmanship aside, isn't this a little egotistical? You carry the world on your shoulders?"

Ruth tightened her grip on her new leader and purred.

The dragonite smiled faintly with embarrassment. "If you'd asked me any time before today, I'd agree. But right now, I think I truly do."


End file.
